I too have recently returned to WoW after a good year plus sabbatical. I've respec'd from frost and my shadoweave set to 2/48/11 and am currently trying to gear up decently so that I can apply to a Tier 4 or Tier 5 guild. I've thought about ditching shadoweave tailoring and switching to spellcloth. But the time and effort required to make all that spellcloth and farm all the primals is daunting, especially when I've already done it once for shadoweave. If possible I'd rather skip that approach and concentrate on other avenues.
I've spent the last 4 days reading the forums here trying to grasp all the changes that have gone in over the last year. However, sometimes it is a bit confusing when you're reading a post and it contradicts information you read elsewhere, and then you realize the post date was 10/10/7. The Mage TC thread alone is 101 pages long and quite intimidating.
I've read the Sweet information thread, the TC, the big blue dress, and Vontre's. Though none of them entirely. Honestly it is just too much to take in in any sort of understanding when you are just diving into it all. Seeing this thread is labeled "Help me" and was started with the spirit of all the information being too extensive to comb through thoroughly I figure it wouldn't hurt to ask. So when answering please take into consideration that simply linking a 101 page thread really isn't that helpful in the end.
First, my armory.
The World of Warcraft Armory
A hint of direction would be greatly appreciated. What gear should I concentrate on getting right now that I have access to? Kara, Mag, Gruul runs are easily doable via PUGs which are run nightly on my server. I have a top server tank who is willing to run Heroics for me and I believe I may be able to get some normal ZA runs in, though timed events wouldn't be feasible due to my DPS not being sufficient to participate.
I've passed on the T4 helm out of Kara time and time again because I've been told it doesn't compare to the spellstrike set and I can see where that's true. But after reading here I've considered getting it for the meta gem socket and putting a
[Mystical Skyfire Diamond] in it.
From what I've gathered, I should concentrate on spell hit to 164 (need 5 more points), then spell haste, then spell damage. With haste being greater than spell damage I am curious if I should put some effort into getting the PVP spell haste items.
[Guardian's Band of Subjugation] and
[Guardian's Pendant of Subjugation] and I believe there is a 3rd item, perhaps a belt. There are also several badge haste items available. I am trying to learn how to use rawr now, but what's the short answer on when to choose haste over damage. For example, I have
[Quagmirran's Eye] but I dont' equip it because it really doesn't seem to go off very much. Am I making a mistake? I was told by a friend on M'uru in Sunwell not to worry about spellhaste at my level of the game and concentrate on damage until I could feasibly get my haste % over 200. From what I've read here that seems incorrect and would like that confirmed by someone more knowledgeable.
Again, I appreciate any advice any of you are willing to give. Going to go back to trying to sludge through the sheer pages of information and grasp a higher level of personal understanding of it all.
EDIT: I plan to put subtlety on my cloak once I finish farming the mats for it and upgrade the spellthread on the pants once I obtain a primal nether. I put spirit on the boots after reading here how it or boar's speed are the really only dps enchant upgrades for the slot and couldn't justify the mats for boar's speed on those boots. Any other enchant/gem advice is welcome.